Hospital consultants deserve 5% pay rise, says BMA

The association said that hospital consultants, like all NHS staff, had been key to the fight against covid-19, showing incredible innovation, skill, and courage in meeting the intense demands of the pandemic and putting their own lives at risk. ?For many doctors at consultant level, the pandemic has tested them to their limits,? the BMA said. Consultants have treated the sickest patients, faced very difficult decisions, and supported junior staff throughout the pandemic, it said. ?For the government therefore to suggest a 1% pay rise, after years of underpay and given consultants? extraordinary efforts throughout this pandemic, is nothing more than insulting,? said Rob Harwood, chair of the BMA?s Consultants Committee. ?We believe 5% is a fair pay rise for hospital consultants. Ministers need to listen to the voices of doctors and the public and show them just how much they are valued by rewarding consultants with the fair pay that they most definitely deserve.? The BMA said that over the past 10 years consultants had seen their real terms pay diminished by successive below-inflation pay ?rises? from the government. In 2008-09 the estimated value of take-home pay for the average consultant in England was ?67 752. Taking inflation (RPI) into account, that figure was just ?48 356 in 2019-20. That was a real decline in value of ?28.6%,